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Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium have discovered ancient
transgenic DNA from Agrobacterium in
the sweet potato genome. The finding that DNA from the same microbe used to
produce human-made transgenic crops—or genetically modified organisms, GMOs—resides
in one of the world’s most important crops calls into question the
classification of GMOs as unnatural. This new research could challenge the
basis for regulating GMOs separately from non-transgenic crops and perhaps help
rescue GMOs from their increasingly negative public image.

That is, if biotech advocates can harness this story to
retell the GMO narrative from a new perspective.

The sweet potato was domesticated 8,000-10,000 years ago in
South America, and today more than 100 million tons are grown every year around
the world. It is grown for its fleshy storage root and leafy greens and,
despite the name, is unrelated to the potato.

While searching for regulatory bits of DNA in the sweet
potato genome, the Belgian scientists discovered portions strikingly similar to
well-known segments of DNA inserted by the bacteria Agrobacterium. Agrobacterium is a plant parasite. It inserts short
sections of its DNA into plant cells that reprogram them to grow tumor-like
structures called galls, which are often seen on tree trunks or crop plants. These
galls are where the bacteria thrives when it gets the chance.

That Agrobacterium DNA might be in a crop plant is neither
new nor altogether surprising. It has been found in tobacco before, although
not in food crops. And a lot of DNA detritus floats around all of our genomes—viral
DNA that does not function anymore, or truncated genes that are DOA.

But these microbial genes in sweet potato are actually active,
albeit at a low level. What’s more, in studying hundreds of domesticated and
wild sweet potato relatives, the researchers found that all of the crop plants,
and none of their wild relatives, had one portion of this transgenic DNA.
Although not proof, this strong association between the Agrobacterium DNA and
the plants humans have domesticated is good evidence that the foreign DNA was
selected for. That is, it might have helped produce a trait that humans kept
around when taming sweet potatoes.

However, the scientists did not find a clear link between the
DNA and the root we eat. It might be that the bacterial DNA produced stronger
sweet potato plants, or conferred other useful traits, even if it does not account
for the engorged root.

As a new lesson in the malleability of genomes during
evolution, this study is fascinating enough. But the reason it was the cover of the
latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has
much more to do with the article’s final sentence:

“This finding could influence the public’s current
perception that transgenic crops are ‘unnatural.’”

But will it?

In a recent survey
by the Pew Research Center comparing the opinions of scientists and the general
public, no topic—not vaccines, not evolution, not climate change—had as big of
a gap between the two groups as whether GMOs are safe to eat. Google “GMOs” and
the first hit is the non-GMO Project. Switch over to images and you’ll find
that one syringe in a tomato just doesn't cut it these days, we've upped it to
three!

Clearly companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer failed,
and failed hard, in their consumer-oriented communication. They’re trying to make up for lost time.
But the general public are not their customers, farmers are. And by the
numbers, corn, cotton and soybean farmers sure like GMOs, so much so that 9 in
10 of each of these crops in the United States is genetically engineered. If
biotech advocates want to pivot the conversation in the public sphere, this
article could be that fulcrum. But there are no guarantees it will work.

Already the popular press has
written it up and jump-started the conversation in a positive light. Biotech
advocates should call into question the unnecessary exclusion of GMOs from the
USDA organic label. Are organic sweet potatoes still a thing? If the organic
label was changed to be exclusively about growing practices and not germplasm,
we could have organic GMOs, as envisioned
by rice geneticist Pamela Ronald and her organic farmer husband Raoul Adamchak.

Biotech advocates should call into question the label of
GMO. Period.

This sweet potato study blurs the already unclear boundaries
between crops created by artificial selection, induced mutation, hybridization,
and genetic engineering. New genetic engineering methods that
introduce no foreign DNA muddy the waters even more. By some definitions,
organic sweet potatoes will be GMOs while genetically engineered potatoes won’t
be. Before we start playing definitional Twister, let’s simplify the
conversation so we can speak meaningfully about what matters—allergenicity,
gene escape, industrial agriculture, and feeding billions of people healthfully
in the era of climate change.

Dating — online or off — is frustrating and bewildering, a long and tearful journey to a great partner. While technology has absolutely transformed how we find potential dates, the most significant change is cultural. Instead of settling down with someone “good enough” we ask so much from our partners now that it’s only natural the search for them is arduous.

Our conversations about civic matters—economic policies, schooling systems, religion, science, and social institutions—are severely lacking in nuance and reasoned debate. Instead, what flourishes are simplistic arguments and ad hominem attacks. This trend is strengthened by a media environment where we can easily consume pieces tailored to our point of view, avoiding challenge and change.

On Being is a weekly public radio show hosted by Krista Tippett ostensibly about religion and spirituality, but now the host of a broader series of discussions called the Civil Conversations Project. I used to turn off On Being when it came on my radio Sunday afternoons, put off by the wispy quality, assuming it was a liberal echo chamber of feel-good, empty spirituality.

But as I would listen in snippets, or accidentally turn it on in the car, I found it to be a series of careful, respectful dialogues about difficult subjects, with religion, of course, among the trickiest.

So it did not altogether surprise me to find myself enchanted by arecent episode on gay marriage, which really became a window into how to have civil debates. An interview of David Blankenhorn and Jonathon Rauch—originally on opposite sides of the gay marriage debate, and now friends in agreement on many issues—the discussion covered David’s changed mind on gay marriage, but much more interestingly their process of what they called “achieving disagreement.”

For this post I really want to excerpt some longer segments that, I think, speak for themselves. I encourage listening to the full episode. To have two people agree about how to disagree, that are intellectually honest in their point of view and empathetic enough to consider the other side is tragically rare these days and models a better way to converse. I think we can learn from them how to continue to passionately disagree while remaining not just polite, but truly civil.